Til We Meet Again
by LadyQuartz24601
Summary: Captain Jack Harkness, Steve Rogers, and Bucky Barnes meet by chance in 1943 London. Seventy years later, they meet again. How will the First Avenger and the Winter Soldier react to this mysterious stranger who never seems to age?


*generic disclaimer here with snide, vaguely sexual comments about characters and actors we all know and love*

'Til We Meet Again

January 20, 1943  
>14:30<p>

Captain Jack Harkness cursed quietly. He was supposed to be conning some gullible Brits into buying his beat-up space junk; he was not supposed to be in real danger over this stupid act. "Please let my ship be safe," he mumbled under his breath as he ran, crouching, through the streets to the nearest shelter.

Up the alley and to his right he saw an alcove. As he reached it, he yanked out the garbage cans filling the space and dove for cover. "No one ever claimed I was brave," he chuckled to himself. He brushed some dust off his shoulders and then made himself as comfortable as he could in the cramped space. "How did I miss this in the history books? A daylight attack? Not how the story goes."

For a moment, the time-traveling space agent considered simply using his vortex manipulator to get back to his ship and leave, but it really was only for a moment. Firstly, he had too much time invested in this scheme to leave without some sort of gain. Secondly, he was distracted by a new arrival in the alcove.

"Get in there!" A blond man in a tight blue uniform tossed another man, this one a brunet in a standard American army uniform, into the space before squeezing in himself. The blond spoke again, "You okay, Buck?"

The one called Buck nodded, before tilting his head in the stranger's direction.

Jack grinned and held out his hand, "Hey, there, Captain Jack Harkness."

"Steve Rogers." The blond shook Jack's hand, then indicated his friend, "This is Bucky Barnes. Peachy afternoon we're having, isn't it?"

"Just got a lot better," Jack flashed them each a thousand-watt smile.

Bucky chuckled before wincing slightly as a bomb shook their shelter. "Steve's being modest. You heard of Captain America?"

Of course Jack had; Captain America was legend, even millennia down the line. Now that the suggestion was put into his head, Jack could easily recognize the iconic uniform and the clean-cut good looks of America's first superhero. "Nice to meet you, Captain," Jack winked in the blond's direction. "I've heard a lot about you."

Bucky rolled his eyes at the flirtation. "What brings you here instead of a real bomb shelter?"

"Bad timing," Jack's brilliant grin was aimed this time at the brunet, who blinked, blushed, and looked at the ground. "What about you?"

Captain America took a long, hard look at the man in front of him. After a moment's deliberation over whether the guy was trustworthy or not, he spoke, "My men and I just got back from a trip into Germany; thought everyone should relax on the town for a few days before we go back in. Bucky and I were trying to track down a few guys we knew before the war."

Jack laid a hand on Steve's shoulder as he spoke in a conspiratorial whisper, "Can these bombs actually hurt Captain America?"

"They can hurt me," Bucky pointed out. "And Steve wouldn't want that, would you, Cap?" He clapped his friend on the back with a grin.

Steve rolled his eyes. "We're lookin' out for each other 'til the end of the line," he assured his friend quickly.

Jack surveyed the two men. Best friends, obviously, for a long time. Probably their entire lives. No doubt Captain America was the all-American apple pie hero; that he was totally hot was an added bonus. The cute brunet, though, was an interesting one. The two soldiers were seemed to be more than just brothers in arms—brothers, though? Lovers, maybe? Was it one-sided? Jack couldn't tell. But Bucky wouldn't meet his eye, and he kept blushing, and it seemed he was either jealous or protective of Steve.

Jack mentally shrugged the thoughts off. It didn't matter at any rate, because here and now he was going to hit on both of them—they were fine male specimens, after all—but he'd never see them again.

"So, Captain, Buck, where're you from? I'm from Toledo myself."

"Brooklyn," Bucky answered, "born and bred." He made eye contact with the aggressive dark-haired man sitting across from him.

With the ice broken and nothing to do but wait out the bombing and hope for the best, the three men chatted quietly for the next hour. The conversation bounced between war stories and childhood adventures with a healthy dose of flirting from Jack aimed at both men. The innuendos, compliments, and appreciative glances were mostly ignored by Steve and alternately scorned and reciprocated by Bucky.

When the danger had passed, the three men parted ways with smiles and hearty handshakes. Jack stood in the alley and watched the attractive soldiers disappear. "No point dwelling on it," he told himself firmly. After all, he had a scheme to carry off.

Ultimately, though, Steve and Bucky returned to his thoughts often while he was in World War II London, and not even a blonde in a Union Jack could distract him fully.

April 11, 2015  
>10:27<p>

Captain Jack Harkness sighed in relief. Torchwood's latest space jumper had worked, even without the rift in the universe. He pressed a button that would turn off the belt-like device and took a deep breath of the crisp New York air. Turning and walking down the street, Jack fished his cell phone out of his pocket to deliver the good news to the crew across the pond.

A few minutes later, the obligatory flirting and information exchange was completed. Jack glanced down to hang up the phone and crashed into someone who had just rounded the corner.

"Sorry," a man's voice apologized, and a large hand appeared in front of Jack's face, offering him help in standing.

Jack was about to introduce himself—and no that wasn't flirting, despite what the Doctor insisted, damn it!—when he recognized the men standing in front of him. Steve looked exactly the same, as might be expected based on the stories of Captain America that Jack had grown up on. He was, however, surprised to see Bucky standing there as well. His hair was longer and he was no longer clean shaven, but he didn't look any older.

"Do I know you?" Bucky was the first to break the silence. The question pained him; he'd had to ask it far too often in the last year as he tried to sort out his life before the brainwashing.

"Captain Jack Harkness." There was that thousand-watt grin again. "London, 1943."

Steve nodded skeptically, his eyes narrowed. He maneuvered himself halfway in front of Bucky, protecting his friend. "How?"

This elicited a hearty laugh from the time agent. "Not super serum, I can tell you that." He pulled the surprised blond into a hug. Seeing that the soldiers were still not comfortable with this blast from their past, he pointed at the doorway of a nearby coffee shop. "I'll fill in the blanks if you buy me coffee." He waggled his eyebrows at Bucky and winked, "If you buy me dinner, who knows what else will get filled."

The scruffy man furrowed his eyebrows and ducked his head to hide his half-blush, but followed the other two into the building.

A few minutes later, the three were situated in a booth with coffees in their hands. Jack took a sip, then smiled. "How do you feel about aliens, Cap?"

Steve shuddered, thinking of the Chitauri attack on the city and Loki's involvement, but then chuckled as he thought of Thor's antics at Avengers Tower. "Some of them are real pieces of work."

"I meant do you believe in them, but okay," Jack chuckled. "Makes it easier if I don't have to convince you they're real. I'm from the 51st century, and I travel in time and space, plus work with alien technology for my real job—if you want to call it that. My friends and I were on this wild adventure on this place Satellite 5 battling these Daleks. Evil little things, terrifying, even though they look like big salt shakers with plungers and whisks shoved into them. So I die. But my friend Rose, she'd looked into the heart of our other friend's space and time machine…. Anyways, I'm immortal. I die; I wake right back up." He finished his story looking quite pleased with himself. Sliding his eyes from Steve's mildly impressed face to Bucky's disbelieving one, Jack asked, "So what about you, Bucky? I know Captain America doesn't age, but what about a regular old Joe like you?"

Steve pulled off his gloves, exposing his metal hand. Waving hello to the man across the table, he sneered, "Not exactly normal anymore." He stared off towards the front door for a moment before focusing in on Jack again. As he told his story, his voice was precise, biting, and impersonal. Although his memories were back, it was easier to talk about them as if they were the plot of a story. "Captured shortly after we met you; treated with a serum like Steve's. Mind wiped, turned into a super assassin, and kept on ice—break glass in case of emergency type situation—until last year. I was supposed to kill Steve, but … I remembered him. Almost too late."

Jack cursed softly under his breath. "I'm sorry. Seriously, that … that really…." He couldn't think of words that captured what he was trying to say, so he trailed off and took a sip of his coffee.

"Yeah." Bucky deadpanned.

He and Steve exchanged a look, and the blond immediately checked his watch. "Well, it's been great catching up, and I hope it's not another seventy years before we see each other," the three of them laughed, "but I have to go … do that thing … find Natasha and Sam and fill them in on that … stuff…." With one last wave, he disappeared back onto the street.

Bucky watched his friend leave, then rolled his shoulders to try and release some of the tension there.

Jack grinned. "Need someone to rub you down?" He eyed Bucky's metal fingers appreciatively. "Bet you'd be awfully good at returning the favor."

"Want to catch a movie?" the soldier asked.

"Sure," Jack rolled with the punches, although he didn't understand where the suggestion had come from.

As if reading his mind, Bucky threw the time traveler a wink. "Unless you can zap us into the evening, Mr. Immortality, we have at least six hours before I can buy you that dinner you suggested."


End file.
